This is the same Egyptian government that just held U.S. citizens for ransom and collected a cool $5 million to release them, including the son of Obama's Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood. Was unblocking the aid money part of the deal?

Even more ironic, the WAPO article linked above refers to the Egyptian military junta as 'one of our major allies in the region'. You see, to that mindset, that's what major allies do. They take American hostages and ransom them for a nice chunk of baksheesh.

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So now, after the Obama Administration made a huge deal out of deposing him and supporting 'democracy', the Muslim Brotherhood and the Arab Spring, we're doing exactly the same thing, only with different and unknown actors and in defiance of sensible measures passed by Congress.

This is typical what passes for strategic thinking for this president and the ideologues he has surrounding him.

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Not only that, but the Israelis aren't stupid, and know exactly who the arms we're supplying the Egyptians with will end up aimed at. Look for a news story in the near future about a major theft or hijacking of American supplied Egyptian arms that ends up going to Hamas.

Well done, Mr. President. Once again, you've pulled off the trick of angering the parties involved on all sides.

FP: Just like I predicted; both that Obama is realigning the US with the Islamists and that he will cotinue to fund Jihadism by US enemies. He does have Israel’s back … in the Islamists’ crosshairs. (see next)

While the world dithers, and the UN sends monumental incompetent Kofi Annan to "negotiate" with the dictator, the bloodbath in Syria continues.

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The scandal is that no effective action is being taken internationally to stop the carnage, which has taken more than 8,000 lives. And we've now learned that Iraq, presumably an ally of the United States (but not really) has been allowing Iran access through Iraq to help the Syrian government.

I think Americans are becoming thoroughly disillusioned with the "Arab spring," and what it has wrought. But our president apparently still believes that he can wave his wand and change things in a part of the world that is centuries behind in political thought.

The bloodshed continues. No one seems very interested. This will not end well.

FP: I don’t think the world can make much difference in Syria, whether it intervenes or not, the outcome will be the same and hostile to it, just as it is in Egypt, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the real reason there is no intervention: had Assad been an ally of the West (rather than one of Iran) they would have toppled him just like that. And he has no oil either.

Agassi rejected my scenario. "Wouldn't it be better," he asked, if Israelis considered "whether it is not easier and wiser to change the situation rather than torment ourselves with the impossibility it imposes on us?" Of course, it was wrong to let Germany slide into the hands of a criminal sadist (though another misfit might "quite possibly" have taken his place). But the "real question," said Agassi, "is, how come a civilized country like Israel has overflowing jails?"

FP: Agassi seems to have stood several times in line when god distributed stupidity. And he is professor of philosophy at the Tel Aviv. What better evidence of the destruction of the education system?

Israel does too many genocidal murderers in jail, but my guess is I and Agassi and his ilk won’t agree on the way to reduce them.

Wells Fargo gave Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf compensation valued at $19.8 million in 2011 as the company posted record profit and became the U.S. bank with the highest market value.

Stumpf got a 4.6 percent raise from 2010, the company said in a regulatory filing Thursday. The package included $2.8 million in salary, $12 million in stock awards and a $3.1 million annual incentive, with $1.9 million from changes in a retirement account, the San Francisco company said.

"Stumpf's leadership has been a vital ingredient to the company's 2011 success in achieving strategic priorities," according to the filing. "Among other things, Mr. Stumpf's 2011 leadership resulted in successful completion of the Wachovia merger integration."

The CEO gets a huge payoff while Wells Fargo continues to offer some of the worst interest rates and financial incentives for consumers in history. Pretty easy to make record profits when you offer 0.05% rates on CD's.